The social media revolution will no longer be televised, at least not with premium content.
Five years after making a measured but somewhat bold entry into the Streaming Wars, Meta is shuttering the original content arm of Facebook Watch.
Really, all the social media giant is doing now is axing the one show from the venture anyone ever ended up recognizing, Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk.
The move, which includes the exit of Facebook Watch programming and development chief Mina Lefevre, is part of a mass layoff of 10,000 Meta workers.
The Penske showbiz trades first reported on the change.
Facebook — well, back in 2018, when it was still called “Facebook” — worked to make a splash for Watch, enlisting benchwarmer talent from premium cable networks to create pro-looking original comedies and dramas, all of which could be commented on and shared by users across the social platform's global community.
Examples: The widow-themed drama Sorry For Your Loss starring Elizabeth Olsen, and the reality show Ball In the Family, starring current NBA players Lonzo and LaMello Ball, along with their overbearing sports-parent father. (You can still watch these shows on Meta, but they're not making any new episodes.
As Google and YouTube quickly discovered with their own abandoned original content play from the same era, good TV is expensive and hard to pull off.
